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Managing the Challenges of Decommissioning
Any long-term strategy of an offshore oil and gas production company will likely include offshore platform decommissioning. After years of production, the wells eventually run dry. As during construction, cleanly and effectively removing an offshore platform is vital...
Weighing Variables Critical to Optimal Pipeline Route Selection
Effective pipeline routing requires careful consideration of many different social, environmental, and geographical factors. This has become especially true in recent years as the challenges associated with building a pipeline have increased. A process that once...
Technological Advancement Keep Subsalt Reservoirs Relevant
Oil and gas exploration in the sub-salt regions of the earth is not a new trend, but it wasn't until the 1990s that computing and geological knowledge had caught up enough to make such exploration globally more common. According to 2013 research by business and...
Innovation of LNG Carriers Continues
In the late 1950s, engineers put their theories to the test and converted a World War II cargo carrier into a prototype LNG carrier called the Methane Pioneer. After demonstrating the viability of the ocean carrier on eight different trips, the birth of an LNG fleet...
Lessons Learned from Deepwater Operations
The challenges of deepwater exploration, drilling, and production are many, including combating cold ambient temperatures and high deepwater pressures that cause hydrates to form in extracted hydrocarbons. The attempt to overcome these challenges alone has resulted in...
Risk and Reliability Evaluations Help the Industry Stay Lean
Ask most any knowledgeable engineer in any industry what complexity has done to modern design, and they'll likely tell you the number of risk points has increased. This of course includes larger systems like refineries and fractionation facilities, which have...
Current Trends in Deepwater Exploration and Production
The first discovery of deepwater oil reserves (more than 1,000 feet deep) was made by Shell in 1975, and some of the first deepwater platforms were implemented in the '80s. Since then, engineering and seismology technologies have improved greatly, propelling deepwater...
This Summer in Oil and Gas: Record Low Drilling Lease Bids, Hurricane Preparedness, and the Oil Export Ban
As always, big changes are afoot in the industry. This summer is no exception. We have plenty to talk about, so let's dive right in. First, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced a record low number of bids for oil and gas drilling leases in the...